“If an extraterrestrial came to earth and witnessed this scene, what would it think?”

The inquiry above is a warmed-over, often-repeated banality; nevertheless the question applies legitimately to our image. How could even our elite domestic anthropologists ever understand this behavior?  It is very strange. Is the headgear in reality a cooling machine created by a whimsical engineer?

Or a symbol — signifying royal status?

Or a horror from a Time yet to come?

If the photograph records an event from Earth’s far future, it must be that human descendants have quadrupled their brain size, built through the tops of their skulls, thus extending grey matter aggressively toward the heavens. The metallic headdress could throw off heat from a gigantic cortex, which might burn more energy than a Las Vegas casino. Perhaps it is rigged to capture solar energy — converting that directly to sugar —  so by photosynthesis the organism satisfies the huge appetite of its overgrown nervous system.